This post got me thinking.
In short, I agree. In fact, what I love most about the MSN Toolbar Suite is the Deskbar. I don’t get to use the MSN Toolbar (since I use Maxthon), and the Outlook bar seems superfluous. I do, however, get to use the MSN Toolbar in regular explorer windows… where it has the least “integrated” feel.
If I want to find something in a specific Outlook folder, the built-in search works with virtually no delay for me.
If I’m search in a more generic sense than that, I may as well use the Deskbar, since it’s always visible.
The deskbar works best because it feels like a natural function of Windows. The rest seem too much like add-ins (which they are).
Sadly, clicking the “search” button in the Explorer shell still brings up the same old Windows XP search pane, despite the fact that it’s rendered virtually obsolete by the MSN Toolbar.
Or is it? If I’m browsing through my media folder in an Explorer window, and decide that I want to listen to a VNV Nation song, I might type “VNV Nation” or “Futureperfect” into the search bar. Unfortunately, doing so with the MSN Toolbar shows me the following, in order:
· Three old “don’t miss” e-mails from Ticketmaster.
· The draft copy of this post.
· An old word document that mentions the band as an example.
· Music files and containing folders from both my machine, interspersed with their duplicates on two of my roommate’s machines.
If I were searching from the Deskbar, this would make sense. However, I’m searching from a folder window. And sadly, I don’t even have the option of searching just within the current folder structure. That needs to be fixed. Further, I want more advanced filter controls for the results; and perhaps some way to set appropriate defaults.
When I’m searching for music, most of the time I want to play a file that I know I have. But sometimes I’ll want to see if any relevant material is on another computer on the network (which I’m very happy that MSN Desktop Search can scan, when told to). Right now, there’s no way to filter by location.
Here are some places I’d like to have an MSN Search bar and context-sensitive filters:
· Explorer folder views. Default filter to find files in subfolders. Maybe even able to show files that used to be in this folder, but got moved elsewhere?
· Open dialogs. Since most of them use the standard box provided by Windows, I want to add to that. And I want the filter to be files that match the type the program is asking for.
o Example: Say I’m working on a project in Visual Studio, and I want to add a source file from a previous project into this one… Let’s say, the AboutBox form that I used in a previous project. I would click on “Add Existing Item…” in VS, and then type “About” into the search box, which instantaneously offers up AboutBox.cs from the previous project’s directory. THAT would impress me.
· I want to be able to have the MSN Desktop Search function completely replace the Windows XP search pane in Explorer, if possible. Of course, some fall-back functionality for non-indexed files would need to be added.
Where else would you like to have a search bar? Post your thoughts.